Developing a network of content providers: The case of Organic.Edunet

1. Developing a network of content providers: The case of Organic.Edunet Vassilis Protonotarios Agricultural Biotechnologist, PhD Agro-Know Technologies, Greece

2. But First About Me

3. Vassilis is an Agronomist! • BSc, MSc, and PhD in Agricultural Biotechnology • Agricultural University of Athens • Got involved with metadata during the Organic.Edunet eContentPlus project (2007-2009) • Working in various EU-funded projects, mostly supporting & coordinating curriculum development and content population • Organic.Balkanet LdV project (2009-2011) • CerOrganic LdV project (2009-2011) • VOA3R ICT-PSP (2010-2013) • Organic.Lingua ICT-PSP project (2011-2014)

4. Main Areas of Interest • Management of collections • Educational metadata • Expansion of the Organic.Edunet network • Dissemination as well as • Blogging • Tweeting • Cycling • Taking photos

5. The Organic.Edunet Network

6. Content Analysis • Currently almost 11,000 resources available through Organic.Edunet • 15 interconnected repositories from 13 countries • Resources appropriate for school & university level, as well as vocational education & training • Vast majority are web-based resources (websites) • Content available in 11 languages • Metadata available in 16 languages; there are metadata in 8 languages max.

7. Organic.Edunet – The Content

8. Organic.Edunet – The Portal

9. Organic.Edunet Web Portal – The Stats* *01/01/2010 -1/12/2012 • almost 11,000 available resources • resources available in 11 languages • Metadata available in 8 languages for many of them • more than 152,000 visits from 192 countries • 468,000 page views • more than 124,000 unique visitors • mostly new visitors / 75% search traffic

10. An Evolving Network Expansion of network in three phases so far • Phase 1: The Organic.Edunet project (2008-2010) • Phase 2: The related projects (2009-now) • Phase 3: The new collections and affiliated content providers (2010-now)

11. Phase 1 – The Organic.Edunet Project partners • Eleven (11) interconnected repositories • Content providers include • Institutional repositories (e.g. university repositories) • Schools (e.g. Rural Wings) • Associations (e.g. Ecologica) • User communities (AGROASIS) • Archives • Almost 10,000 metadata records provided

12. Phase 2 – Projects related to Organic.Edunet • Four new interconnected repositories • Organic.Balkanet training curriculum (about 100 records) • CerOrganic training curriculum (about 300 records) • ProdINRA (about 2,000 records) • TrAgLOR (Turkish Agricultural Learning Objects Repository) (about 300 records) • Material related to vocational training and higher education • Multilingual metadata • Two existing repositories will be enhanced • The Miksike collection on organic agriculture • The Spanish repository on organic agriculture Organic.Lingua content

13. Phase 3 – New Collections & Affiliated content providers • 6 new collections: • Digital Green • OER Africa • Green OER • YouTube videos on organic Agriculture • Slideshare presentations on organic agriculture • Flickr photos on organic agriculture • Small collections, based on quality over quantity • Manual annotation of a small number of records

14. The Network of Collections

15. Connecting to Organic.Edunet

16. Connecting to the Organic.Edunet Network Guides • Information on “How to connect” is available through a Wiki page: http://wiki.agroknow.gr/organic_edunet/index.php/Main_Page

17. Connecting to the Organic.Edunet Network Workflow

18. 3 Ways to Connect to Organic.Edunet • Harvesting of metadata • example: existing and new collections in Confolio • harvested through an OAI-PMH target • existence of various sets, that may be harvested individually • Metadata records are validated and harvested • Ingestion of metadata • example: content from social sources • XML files retrieved indirectly from YouTube/Flickr/Slideshare etc. & ingested in compliant tools (Confolio, AgLR) • Metadata records are validated and harvested • Creation of metadata • Example: not organized collections / individuals • Use of AgLR/Confolio for the creation of metadata records • Metadata records are validated and harvested

19. 1. Harvesting of metadata • Usually the easiest way of content integration • Exposure of metadata through an OAI-PMH target • Validation of OAI-PMH target -> Validation service • Metadata validation -> Metadata validation service • Metadata mapping might be required • Currently manual mapping • Use of (Ag)Mint is planned

20. 1. Harvesting of metadata: Workflow • A content provider contactsOrganic.Edunet • The appropriateness of the repository content is checked against the Organic.Edunet Quality Criteria • Basic information is requested from the content provider in a registration form • The target is checked using the Organic.Edunetvalidation service • The metadata structure is checked against the Organic.Edunet IEEE LOM AP using the Organic.Edunetmetadata validation service • Metadata are harvested automatically • If mapping is needed, then the metadata elements are manually mapped.

21. 2. Ingestion of metadata • In cases where harvesting is not an option • e.g. not supported by the tool, no tool available • Metadata need to be compatible with Organic.Edunet IEEE LOM AP • Mapping may be required in some cases • Metadata need to be ingested in a compatible tool and probably enriched • Example: The case of YouTube XML files • Content needs to meet the Organic.Edunet Quality Criteria

22. 2. Ingestion of metadata: Workflow • A content provider contactsOrganic.Edunet • The appropriateness of the repository content is checked against the Organic.Edunet Quality Criteria • Basic information is requested from the content provider in a registration form • A sample number of metadata records (e.g. in xml format) is checked using the Organic.Edunetmetadata validation service • Metadata are manually ingested • If mapping is needed, then the metadata elements are manually mapped before ingestion. • In case of additional content, new manual ingestion needs to take place

23. Ingestion vs Harvesting • Trying to encourage content providers to enable/support harvesting of their metadata records.

24. 3. Creation of metadata • In cases where harvesting/ingestion is not an option • e.g. offline collections, not digitized material etc. • Metadata records created from scratch • Fully compatible with Organic.Edunet IEEE LOM AP if a compatible tool is used (AgLR / Confolio) • Mapping is needed in case of APs other than Organic.Edunet IEEE LOM.

25. 3. Creation of Metadata: Workflow 1. Types of Content Content locally stored (e.g. hard disk) Non-digitized content New content 2. Creation of metadata Metadata Annotation Tool 3. Validation of metadata 4. Publication through Organic.Edunet Web portal

26. Organic.Edunet IEEE LOM AP & Ontology

27. The Organic.Edunet AP (1/2) • Based on the IEEE LOM AP, standard for describing educational resources • Slightly modified in order to match better the annotation of agricultural educational resources • Selection of metadata elements • Changes in the status of elements (e.g. mandatory) • Introduction of required extensions • Multilingual AP: Currently available in 16 languages, including Arabic, Chinese & Hindi • Recently updated to a new version, reflecting the requirements of the Organic.Lingua EU project

28. The Organic.Edunet AP (2/2) • The new Organic.Edunet AP is available at: http://wiki.agroknow.gr/organic_lingua/Organic.Edunet_Metadata_Application_Profile

29. The Organic.Edunet Ontology • A conceptual model useful for classifying learning materials on the Organic Agriculture (OA) and Agroecology (AE) domain • Used in the Organic.Edunet web portal for the semantic search • Recently revised in the context of the Organic.Lingua project

30. Organic.Edunet-Compliant Tools

31. Organic.Edunet – The Tools • Confolio Repository Tool • Used by the Organic.Edunet consortium content providers as well as by some of the new ones • Folder-based organization of records • Integrates the previous Organic.Edunet IEEE LOM AP (v2.0) • Multilingual user interface – currently available in 17 languages • Agricultural Learning Repository (AgLR) Tool • A tool developed by Agro-Know to support new content providers • Integrates the latest Organic.Edunet IEEE LOM AP (v3.0) • Will integrate the latest Organic.Edunet ontology • Supports automatic translation of metadata records (Title, Description & Keywords) • Collection-based organization of records • Multilingual user interface – currently available in 10 languages

32. The Organic.EdunetConfolio Tool

33. The AgLR tool

34. About the Tools • All repository tools that can expose metadata through an OAI-PMH target can be used • Metadata will be automatically harvested, after they are mapped to the Organic.Edunet metadata AP • Repository tools that cannot expose metadata through an OAI-PMH target can also be used • Metadata will have to be exported and then ingested to a repository tool capable of exposing metadata through OAI-PMH

35. Organic.edunet is currently working on…

36. 1. Multilinguality • Automatic translation tools to be integrated in both AgLR and Web portal • Work by XEROX (SMT) and CELI (CLIR), adapted in the agricultural sector • Automatic translation of Title, Description & Keywords • Additional services will be used in case of languages not supported by the aforementioned tools

37. 2. User Engagement • User Generated Content widget developed by K-C • Users allowed to contribute their own content (metadata) using an easy-to-use form • This content includes suggestions for new resources and revisions/translations of existing ones

38. 3. Extending the Network • Discussions with new content providers • From EU, India and Africa • Revisions in the content integration workflow • Revision of the quality criteria • Definition of the scope of the network

39. Thank you for your attention!